


Release

by KatieComma



Series: Those Who Favour Fire [2]
Category: MacGyver (TV 2016)
Genre: But Not X-Men, Comfort, F/M, Pre-Relationship, fire!Riley, ice!Mac, mutant AU, power control
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-14
Updated: 2019-06-14
Packaged: 2020-05-07 12:45:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,974
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19209712
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KatieComma/pseuds/KatieComma
Summary: Riley uses her powers to save Jack and Thornton, but what happens when she can't rein herself back in.Maybe Mac has a solution that Riley never saw coming.





	Release

**Author's Note:**

> Takes place during episode 108 - the one where Murdoc lures them to the junkyard to trap Mac.
> 
>  
> 
> Thank you for beta reading: MidnightBlueMoon!!!!!! - and thank you for giving me this wonderful AU to play with!!!

Piles of vehicles surrounded her, and Riley hated it.

The smell of the grease and oil dripping down from the wrecks filled her nose, making her head ache.

It reminded her of crashes, and Jack’s obsession with classic cars. And that guy she’d liked once who’d been really into shop class, but it turned out he had been an idiot. A really hot idiot, but an idiot nevertheless.

And then there was the part where she was standing in the middle of a junkyard with a laser sight focused on her chest. It didn’t endear the rusting piles of junk to her any more.

It almost made her smile to think that Mac would love the place. It would be like a playground to him: discarded toys everywhere just waiting to be tinkered with. But they’d left Mac behind. Jack had insisted that the psycho they were after wasn’t their regular-type psycho and that Mac needed to stay safe. Cause this particular psycho was after Mac specifically. Riley was glad Jack had put his foot down; Mac had really grown on her, and the last thing she wanted was for him to be standing beside them waiting to die.

Riley had been around guns. She’d been in prison, after all, and guards carry guns. But she’d never had a gun pointed at her, never had a psycho on the other end of that gun’s controls. Her insides felt like they were shaking apart and it made her nervous.

That shakiness agitated something inside her, and she felt the heat start to bubble in her stomach.

“No, no, no,” Riley chanted under her breath. “Not now. Not now.”

“You ok, Riley?” Jack asked, and buried deep in his voice, under his cool calm authority, was a little bit of fear.

Riley clenched her teeth. Not many people could read that fear in Jack Dalton, but Riley had seen it pointed at her before, and it hurt just as much years later. He thought she couldn’t control herself, that she was going to explode and kill them all. She’d spent years making sure that never happened, would never happen again.

Sure, she’d lost control a time or two over the years: the laundry room in the prison when they’d tried to beat her into submission and her body had reacted to protect itself; they’d never messed with her again. Or that time her dad had come back and threatened her mom. But nothing like that had happened in years.

“I’m fine Jack,” Riley ground out, swallowing hard and willing the writhing fire in her gut to settle.

Fine, except for the fact that they were going to die in less than ten minutes. The assassin they were after had given Mac a fifteen minute window to show himself, or the rest of them would be shot. But Mac was safely back at Phoenix, and he wasn’t stupid enough to think this guy would keep his word if Mac showed up, was he?

Just as that thought crossed her mind a red Jeep pulled into the junkyard, Mac behind the wheel. He stopped across from them and looked out through the passenger window. His face was all apology and anger mixed up together.

“Naw, naw, naw,” Jack shook his head. “What the hell is he doing?” Riley watched as Jack’s feet shifted. He wanted to move. To run at Mac and protect him or tell him to “get the hell outta here.” But with the auto targeted guns trained on them, Jack stayed in place.

Riley wanted Mac to stay parked there forever. Something about his cool blue eyes watching them, made her feel invincible, like she could never be hurt. Like somehow he could keep the inevitable at bay. But he floored the gas and peeled away into the junkyard, throwing up dirt behind the Jeep.

They stayed like that. Waiting. Standing still. Riley closed her eyes and hoped that somehow Mac would make everything ok, finding an insane solution the way he had everywhere she’d gone with him so far since they’d met. The wind stirred up dust in the junkyard, blowing hot around them.

And suddenly out of nowhere a shot rang out. Riley’s eyes snapped open and she wondered if she’d been shot. Instead Thornton fell back against the car they were standing next to and crumpled to the ground.

“Patty!” Jack called out, feet shuffling to go to her.

“Jack! Don’t move!” Thornton ordered from the dusty ground.

Jack looked down at the dot still hovering in the middle of his chest before he looked up and around him as though he could see the bad guy, and then he growled angrily into the air. “I’m gonna kill you! You son of a bitch, you hear me? You’re a dead man!”

Riley felt useless. She’d been put in prison for computer hacking, not violence. This was outside her purview and she had no idea what to do, how to help. Her eyes darted from Thornton and back to Jack and her heart pounded in her chest like it would burst. That rushing of blood through her body, faster and faster, woke up the fire in her gut again. The fire that wanted to protect her, wanted to keep her safe from what was happening. The fire that didn’t care what got in its way except that Riley needed to be safe.

And maybe if she wasn’t such a coward, she could help them. Save them. She could reach out and harness that power inside and keep those guns from hurting anyone else, from hurting Jack. Whatever Mac was doing, didn’t seem to be working, and she didn’t see any other options.

Blood oozed from Thornton’s wound. She was trying to keep her face under control, but the pain etched lines in it that normally didn’t cross her stern features. Riley was afraid of that pain, afraid to go out that way with a bullet splitting her open to leak all over the stupid oil-soaked dirty dusty ground of the junkyard.

The blood pumped faster and faster, filling up her ears and drowning out Jack’s voice as he spoke to Thornton, urging her to keep pressure on the wound. The more Riley thought about being shot, dying, the more she feared it. And then the power surged up from her centre, warming all of her limbs and crackling to her fingertips. She could do it. She could reach out and make the guns stop working. Her fire was hot enough to melt the metal. She’d seen it do much more destructive things. All she had to do was send out enough to melt the guns, and then rein it in again and she’d be safe. They’d all be safe. She could keep everyone safe.

Riley looked around the clearing, focusing on the rifles that were quivering with each of their tiniest movements. She held her hands up, fingers spread wide and willed the fire to come to her fingertips, willed that power to listen to her. If it just listened and they could work together, then they didn’t need to destroy anything they didn’t want to. She reached out, took a deep breath in, and when she let it out she forced the fire from her fingertips.

And it worked. The fire flowed in waves from her hands, travelling in a rush to their target and destroying the guns in a flash and bang like fireworks, as all of the ammo inside of them exploded at once in crackling pops of light.

It was done so quickly she barely had time to register, and then she pulled the power back. It was like drawing an anchor up from the bottom of the sea: hard at first, almost like it was stuck on something, but then it slowly started to come in, fighting her the whole way. Finally she had it back inside and she felt hot, her breath panting out of her in clouds of smoke, but she’d pulled it back in.

She wanted to laugh to the sky and cheer and shout like she did that time she hacked the Pentagon as a teen. Instead she turned to Jack, who was holding Thornton up. Riley was smiling wide, but Jack wasn’t.

“I did it Jack,” she said, but her words were muffled by the smoke pouring out of her.

“Riley?” Jack ventured. “You gotta get it under control honey.”

“But I do,” she tried to say, but again more smoke just poured out instead of words. It was hot in her throat, like breathing in too close to a campfire, or smoking her first cigarette.

“Riley sweetheart,” Jack’s voice was saccharine, but his words trembled, like they had when she was young. He held out his hands, but didn’t come toward her. “Everything’s ok. And you need to calm down, alright?”

But she was calm. She was ecstatic. She’d saved them. Didn’t he understand what she’d done? Why couldn’t he see? And this time when she tried to speak her throat didn’t work at all, and all she felt was the fire. She looked down at her hands and they were roiling with blue flame.

No. Not again. She’d pulled it back, why wouldn’t it go back inside? Go back to sleep?

She looked at Jack, feeling helpless, wishing he could just save her. Why couldn’t he save her? Why couldn’t she look in those kind brown eyes and find acceptance and the warm comfort of family that would let her put this curse of hers away? Instead there was fear in his eyes, the absolute fear of someone who wanted to run.

Riley shook her head, frustrated. It felt like tears were leaking from her eyes, but if they were they evaporated as they formed.

“Patty,” she heard Jack’s voice, but things were starting to get fuzzy. Just like when she’d had incidents when she was young. The world faded behind the heat, everything becoming hazy and rippled by the sheer temperature. “Patty, we gotta get outta here. This ain’t gonna end well, I’ve seen it before.”

“Ok Jack,” Patty groaned as he helped her up from the ground.

Riley stumbled in a circle, as though she would find something that would help her. As though she’d see a solution the way Mac did whenever they were in a bind. But there was nothing but stupid old broken down cars and dusty earth.

“I can walk Dalton,” Patty’s harsh voice echoed. “Go get Mac and let’s get out of here.” Patty spared a glance for Riley, and there was pity in her eyes, but she was afraid too, and she stumbled off, away from the flames. Away from the danger.

“I’ll come back for you Riley,” Jack promised as he backed away, looking so small and frightened. Something she never thought she’d see again. Not since he’d left her and her mother behind. Not since he’d seen what she could do.

She opened her mouth to yell “Jack,” because she was afraid to be alone and she didn’t want him to go, but the fire stole her voice and twisted it into a roar. He had to leave, or she’d hurt him again anyway.

Once Jack was out of sight she resigned herself to the fire, tired of fighting it, tired of trying to pull it back in when it just wanted to be free, when it wanted to burn and destroy, and even kill. It took over her vision, and sounds became vague, soft things. She always thought she’d feel free if she let it go, let it out. She felt more trapped than ever; held prisoner at the heart of this inferno that wouldn’t listen to her. And Riley had never wanted to be a prisoner ever again, but she would never escape it when she took her prison with her, deep inside.

Riley could hear things vaguely through the simmering heat of the fire that surrounded her. Voices. Muffled by the flames.

“Come on Mac, we gotta get outta here!” Jack’s voice. “There’s nothin’ we can do for her. I’ve seen it before.”

A twinge of hurt somewhere deep inside Riley made the fire burn hotter. Jack had seen it before. And he’d left, just like he was planning to leave now. Leave her behind with no way to stop the burn consuming her. He was right though. She didn’t want to hurt anyone, so they needed to leave.

“No!” Mac’s voice cut through the haze.

All she could see was fire, but Mac sounded close.

“I’m staying Jack, you go!”

Riley wanted to scream “no” at him. To tell him to run as far away from her as he could get. But she knew the fire wouldn’t let her have her voice.

“I don’t think so Mac,” Jack again. “You’re stayin’, I’m stayin’. You go kaboom, I go kaboom remember?”

Riley blinked her eyes, she wanted to see, wanted to be able to do anything but burn. Wanted to run away from them if they wouldn’t leave.

“I’m not gonna go kaboom Jack,” Mac reassured. There was such steady confidence in his voice. “Get outta here. I’ve got this.”

“Mac…” The warning in Jack’s voice cut her to the core again.

There was a war inside Riley. More than anything she wanted Jack to be able to talk her down, make her see sense and reason and throw water over the fire inside her. But she knew that he couldn’t, and she couldn’t hurt him. Not again.

“Jack,” Mac’s voice, still so steady, not a trace of fear. “Trust me Jack.”

A pause in their conversation. Was that it? Had she burned too hot? Were they gone? Had she killed them? Or had they just run from her?

“Get Thornton out of here!” Mac commanded.

And to Riley’s surprise Jack conceded. “Alright hoss,” he replied. “You just make sure you know what you’re doing.”

There was no answer. Just the scrabbling of feet on gravel, retreating. She didn’t hear anything from Mac, despite the things he’d said. So he’d left too? Without being able to see anything but the fire she just couldn’t be sure.

It had happened to her what felt like a thousand times before. That was it. They were gone. People just didn’t stay for Riley Davis.

Riley couldn’t hold it back anymore, and now that she was sure they’d left her, she let it go. Maybe this time she would burn hot enough to consume herself and then it would be over once and for all. The fire grew hotter still, and it was all she knew.

Until a voice came back to her. Impossibly close.

“Riley,” Mac’s voice, still calm and collected even in the face of her full power. “Come back Riley.”

Without being able to see him, if she’d had to guess, she would have said he was standing right in front of her. Talking to her. But that was impossible.

She opened her mouth to say something, but more heat came out instead.

“Just calm down Riley,” that voice again, so cool and steady.

And then she felt it. Fingertips touching the back of her neck. And she wanted to scream at him to run away. What was he doing? How was he doing this? But his hands clamped down around the back of her neck, and they were cold. That cold seeped into her, but it wasn’t bone chilling or frost biting or hurting in any way. It was calming and it grounded her somehow. Like clean cool summer rain on a hot day it spread from her neck down throughout her whole body and the fire settled back inside her.

It took her a minute to realize that she was back to herself. She could hear sound normally, not straining to listen through violent heat. And her eyes were closed. She’d closed them to the feel of that soft coolness trickling through her.

When she opened her eyes Mac was so close. His icy blue eyes were right in front of her, and they seemed brighter than normal. Strands of his blonde hair were hanging in his eyes, and the tips were jagged and shiny with ice crystals. His fingers still gripped the back of her neck and she could feel the cold spreading from them.

Riley barked out a laugh, and mirrored Mac’s posture, slipping her hands to the back of his neck. His skin was cold, but not clammy, it felt good, it felt right, it felt natural.

Mac sighed out a little chuckle and closed his eyes, relaxing under her touch. His breath puffed against her like the sigh of air from an opened fridge. When he opened his eyes again they were still blue, but had lost that crystalline icy edge. The cold was retreating from her, the ice in his hair starting to turn to water and drip away.

“Why didn’t you tell me about this?” Riley asked as she plucked a small piece of ice from his hair. It melted fast on her still warm fingertip. “About what you could do?” Keeping close, she suddenly wanted to pull him closer. But that would be unprofessional, wouldn’t it?

“I don’t…” he faltered and pulled back from her a little, his eyes darting around. “I haven’t really told anyone.”

She turned her head in the direction he was looking, she assumed it was the way Jack had gone. “Not even Jack?” She asked, meeting his eye.

Mac’s face went serious. “Not even Jack,” he confirmed.

“It’s our little secret,” she said, some instinct inside her pulling him a little closer again. 

She wanted so many things suddenly, and all of them started and ended with cool fingers at the back of her neck.


End file.
